Mobile or portable computing platforms provide a wealth of functionality. As a result of their mobility or portability, such computing platforms may be carried by or otherwise travel with users and, as a result, may perform various geographically-related features and services. In this regard, the geographically-related features and services may be provided based upon the rich mapping data that is available to the computing platforms including points of interest, links and nodes as maintained by a mapping database. There are a variety of mobile or portable computing platforms that provide geographically-related features and services including dedicated computing devices, such as in-vehicle navigation systems and personal navigation systems, as well as more general purpose computing devices, such as mobile telephones, portable personal computers, such as notebook computers and tablets, personal digital assistants and the like.
One example of the geographically-related features and services provided by mobile or portable computing platforms is route calculation and guidance. In this regard, some mobile or portable computing platforms can determine one or more routes to travel between an origin and a destination, thereby offering guidance to a user prior to or during the trip. In this regard, based upon the physical location of the user, such as may be determined by a global positioning system (GPS), a navigation application executed by a mobile or portable computing platform may analyze various routes from the current location of the user to the destination and may identify a preferred route of travel therebetween. The mobile or portable computing platform may then provide the user with information regarding the preferred route, such as in the form of a map which depicts the route and/or instructions that direct the user along the route to the destination.
As another example, some mobile or portable computing platforms may provide business or person location services, such as an electronic form of the yellow or white pages. In addition to simply identifying the location of a certain type of business or a particular person, such as a contact of the user, mobile or portable computing platforms may identify the locations of businesses or individuals based upon the current location of the user. For example, the mobile or portable computing platforms may identify all businesses or persons of a certain type within a predefined range of a user's current location. Alternatively, the mobile or portable computing device may identify the closest business or person of a particular type relative to the current location of the user.
Although a variety of geographically-related features and services are provided by a mobile or portable computing platforms, it may be desirable to provide additional geographically-related features and services that further leverage the rich data stored and maintained by mapping databases.